Soldiers are seen on tanks near the Gaza border on December 13, 2023 in Southern Israel.Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images
Canada’s call for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war reflects a “naive” understanding of the conflict and will have no impact on the fighting, Israel’s ambassador said Wednesday as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s softened stand also fuelled tensions in his Liberal caucus.
On Tuesday Mr. Trudeau’s government broke with years of Canadian policy by voting for a non-binding resolution at the United Nations, which called for an immediate ceasefire in the two-month war and was perceived by critics to hold the Jewish state responsible for the war. The United States did not support the vote.
Canada’s policy shift was followed by a separate statement that also called for a ceasefire but used different language, which detractors, including some Liberal MPs, have said made for a contradictory stand. Mr. Trudeau has been under immense political pressure since the conflict began in October to take a harder line with Israel, including a lobby campaign from many in his own caucus, who celebrated Canada’s UN vote.
The minority Liberals made the policy change without consulting Israel, said the country’s ambassador to Canada, Iddo Moed. However, Mr. Trudeau did brief Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before the position was made public.
Mr. Moed called the ceasefire demand disappointing but ultimately irrelevant, even if well-intentioned.
“It’s like a tree falling in the woods somewhere, nobody hears it,” Mr. Moed said. “The fact that Canada changed its position didn’t change anything on the ground.”
Israel, he said, views demands for a ceasefire as a demand for the Jewish state to lay down its arms while Hamas would continue attacking.
“It’s naive,” Mr. Moed said. “Canada, just like the rest of the international community, has to understand that we are in a war with a terrorist organization, that until we finish this war, nothing else is relevant.”
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Much of the Gaza Strip has been laid to waste, and conditions are dire with little access to basic necessities. The Hamas-controlled health authority says Israel’s offensive has killed more than 18,500 Palestinians. The military assault is a response to the militant group’s killing of 1,200 people in Israel, mostly civilians, and taking of 240 hostages on Oct. 7.
Mr. Moed said a de facto ceasefire was in place before Oct. 7 and was broken by the Hamas attack. He said the ceasefire call, and another from Canada to renew talks for a two-state solution, ignore the reality on the ground.
“If we had a two-state solution tomorrow morning, that wouldn’t change anything for Hamas,” Mr. Moed said. “It doesn’t make sense to talk about a two-state solution while we are waging a war. "
The UN resolution, which passed with more than two-thirds support, did not name Hamas or its violent attack in Israel more than two months ago, but it directly referenced the “catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip.”
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Canada released a statement with New Zealand and Australia before the vote that put more conditions on a ceasefire. It called on Hamas to lay down its weapons, release Israeli hostages and stop using civilians as human shields.
Mr. Trudeau reiterated those conditions Wednesday.
“We’re going to keep participating in urgent international efforts toward a sustainable ceasefire, but it cannot be one-sided,” he said.
But the government’s explanation doesn’t soften the vote that Canada supported at the UN, said Liberal MP Anthony Housefather, describing Canada’s shift as inconsistent and disappointing.
The UN resolution amounted to “an unconditional call for ceasefire,” he said. “We supported a resolution that singled out Israel, abandoning Israel and our traditional ally, the United States, in a time when Israel is at war.”
But his colleague Salma Zahid said she was grateful for Canada’s new position and said she hopes the government “will rally international support to protect the innocent civilians being killed in Palestine, in Gaza.”
She agreed with the government’s position that Hamas should not have a role in Gaza, but said Israel should sit down and talk with an unspecified other representative of the Palestinian people.
“If there is a will there is a way,” said Liberal MP Fayçal El-Khoury, who said he hopes the ceasefire will be implemented and lead to a two-state solution.
For Israel, the focus is only on its current goal of eliminating Hamas, destroying its infrastructure and bringing back the hostages, said Mr. Moed.
“We’re not there yet,” the ambassador said when asked what his country’s postwar plan was.
He rejected U.S. President Joe Biden’s description Tuesday of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza as indiscriminate, and dismissed cautions from Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly that his country’s offensive will enhance the cycle of violence.
“There is no alternative,” Mr. Moed said. “In our eyes, this is a binary choice. Either you live or you die. Hamas wants to kill you. So if you stop fighting, they will kill you.”
He said the international community is looking for easy solutions that do not exist and insisted that Israel tries to avoid civilian casualties in the Palestinian enclave, which is controlled by Hamas.
Given the trauma of that attack, Israel’s desire to destroy Hamas is understandable, said Thomas Juneau, an associate professor of public and international affairs at the University of Ottawa. But he cautioned that such a goal is not achievable and said the focus should, instead, be on weakening Hamas.
He said a ceasefire would be a victory for Hamas but cautioned that “continuing the war leads to a strategic defeat for Israel.”
“The risk for Israel is to breed so much resentment, so much extremism, so much radicalization that Hamas 2.0, or whatever you want to call it, that will emerge from the ashes of Gaza, will be as bad, and maybe even worse, than what Hamas is,” Prof. Juneau said.
However, he acknowledged there is no clear answer for what Israel should do. If a path to negotiations and a ceasefire can be found, he said the only capital that would be able to pull it off is Washington.
With reports from Reuters and The Canadian Press.
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